When is AI like your mother?

I know it sounds like the setup to a joke, but there's a little thread between the two stories coming up on selected shorts.

A connection between these two powerful forces.

One is an inescapable know-it-all who rewrites your book report.

The other is AI.

Okay, so it was a joke.

But stick around for the stories about those voices we rely on getting a little too loud.

I'm Meg Walletzer.

Stay right where you are.

Thank you. I'm Meg Wallitzer. Stay right where you are. You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

We all hear some kind of inner monologue, don't we?

Some voice that helps make sense of the world around us.

Maybe that voice offers up different things we might do or say and mulls the possible outcomes.

Or it reminds us of certain memories and conjures up visions of our future.

Or maybe it's just reciting the lyrics to the Pina Colada song over and over again,

and we can't get it to stop.

For some of us, this chatter is noxious and constant.

For others, surely, it's gentle and occasional.

I think it's safe to say writers have pretty active interior lives.

I, for one, have a hard time imagining my day without that running monologue.

It sometimes goes like this.

It's time for you to stop doing spelling bee and wordle and connections and get to work.

...